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"Have you said anything to our young friend the lover of her?"
"No," I said. "I waited till I had seen you, as I said in my telegram. I
wrote him a letter simply telling him that you were coming, as Miss
Westenra was not so well, and that I should let him know if need be."
"Right, my friend," he said, "quite right! Better he not know as yet;
perhaps he shall never know. I pray so; but if it be needed, then he
shall know all. And, my good friend John, let me caution you. You deal
with the madmen. All men are mad in some way or the other; and inasmuch
as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God's madmen,
too--the rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what you do nor why
you do it; you tell them not what you think. So you shall keep knowledge
in its place, where it may rest--where it may gather its kind around it
and breed. You and I shall keep as yet what we know here, and here." He
touched me on the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself
the same way. "I have for myself thoughts at the present. Later I shall
unfold to you."
"Why not now?" I asked. "It may do some good; we may arrive at some
decision." He stopped and looked at me, and said:--
"My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has
ripened--while the milk of its mother-earth is in him, and the sunshine
has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the
ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff,
and say to you: 'Look! he's good corn; he will make good crop when the
time comes.'" I did not see the application, and told him so. For reply
he reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully, as
he used long ago to do at lectures, and said: "The good husbandman tell
you so then because he knows, but not till then. But you do not find the
good husbandman dig up his planted corn to see if he grow; that is for
the children who play at husbandry, and not for those who take it as of
the work of their life. See you now, friend John? I have sown my corn,
and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout; if he sprout at all,
there's some promise; and I wait till the ear begins to swell." He broke
off, for he evidently saw that I understood. Then he went on, and very
gravely:--
"You were always a careful student, and your case-book was ever more
full than the rest. You were only student then; now you are master, and
I trust that good habit have not fail. Remember, my friend, that
knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker.
Even if you have not kept the good practise, let me tell you that this
case of our dear miss is one that may be--mind, I say _may be_--of such
interest to us and others that all the rest may not make him kick the
beam, as your peoples say. Take then good note of it. Nothing is too
small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises.
Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We
learn from failure, not from success!"
When I described Lucy's symptoms--the same as before, but infinitely
more marked--he looked very grave, but said nothing. He took with him a
bag in which were many instruments and drugs, "the ghastly paraphernalia
of our beneficial trade," as he once called, in one of his lectures, the
equipment of a professor of the healing craft. When we were shown in,
Mrs. Westenra met us. She was alarmed, but not nearly so much as I
expected to find her. Nature in one of her beneficent moods has ordained
that even death has some antidote to its own terrors. Here, in a case
where any shock may prove fatal, matters are so ordered that, from some
cause or other, the things not personal--even the terrible change in her
daughter to whom she is so attached--do not seem to reach her. It is
something like the way Dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an
envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that
which it would otherwise harm by contact. If this be an ordered
selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one for the vice
of egoism, for there may be deeper root for its causes than we have
knowledge of.
I used my knowledge of this phase of spiritual pathology, and laid down
a rule that she should not be present with Lucy or think of her illness
more than was absolutely required. She assented readily, so readily that
I saw again the hand of Nature fighting for life. Van Helsing and I were
shown up to Lucy's room. If I was shocked when I saw her yesterday, I
was horrified when I saw her to-day. She was ghastly, chalkily pale; the
red seemed to have gone even from her lips and gums, and the bones of
her face stood out prominently; her breathing was painful to see or
hear. Van Helsing's face grew set as marble, and his eyebrows converged
till they almost touched over his nose. Lucy lay motionless, and did not
seem to have strength to speak, so for a while we were all silent. Then
Van Helsing beckoned to me, and we went gently out of the room. The
instant we had closed the door he stepped quickly along the passage to
the next door, which was open. Then he pulled me quickly in with him and
closed the door. "My God!" he said; "this is dreadful. There is no time
to be lost. She will die for sheer want of blood to keep the heart's
action as it should be. There must be transfusion of blood at once. Is
it you or me?"
"I am younger and stronger, Professor. It must be me."
"Then get ready at once. I will bring up my bag. I am prepared."
I went downstairs with him, and as we were going there was a knock at
the hall-door. When we reached the hall the maid had just opened the
door, and Arthur was stepping quickly in. He rushed up to me, saying in
an eager whisper:--
"Jack, I was so anxious. I read between the lines of your letter, and
have been in an agony. The dad was better, so I ran down here to see for